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Halo Devices
"I have looked into the expanse of soulless darkness that waits beyond the gates that man should not dare to pass. I have seen the death light in the eyes of those who walk that forbidden land." –from the personal reflections Inquisitor Hastur Whitlock On some ancient and forgotten worlds, the ashes and echoes of races and civilizations long dead still linger. The galaxy is far older than human experience can comprehend, and in its dark history many races both great and insignificant have risen up and returned to nothingness, all long before mankind even evolved. Of most nothing remains but dust and silence, but for some their works endure. Products of inhuman knowledge and unknown purpose, some are enigmatic and inscrutable whilst others are perilous---seeds of corruption that can twist the soul, befoul the mind, and profane the sacred human form. One such genus of artefacts, spoken of in Inquisitorial record and Rogue Trader tales as the “Halo Devices,” has long been known and forbidden to mankind, for these objects are truly dangerous. Yet there are those who would seek out and possess a Halo Device for all its dark renown and use it for the false gift it promises. The reason is simple. Mankind has always feared death, and a Halo Device offers immortality... for a price. 'Origins and Nature' Halo Devices are so named because they come from worlds within the volume of space known as the Halo Stars---a dangerous and ill-omened region that is bordered by several barbarous voids of space as well as a number of Imperial sectors including Scarus and Calixis. The worlds from which Halo Devices come are truly ancient and utterly lifeless, orbiting dead stars which must have burned their brightest many thousands of millennia ago. That such worlds once were part of some antediluvian and now long dead civilization is a fact generally agreed upon by Xeno-Arcanists and Rogue Traders, but just what the creatures from this civilization were or how they passed into extinction is a question that has never been answered. All that may be surmised about these creatures comes from the one legacy they left behind---the artefacts referred to as Halo Devices. From these, it can be surmised that the makers of the Halo Devices had highly developed technology and a great understanding of physical matter and biological processes far in advance of perhaps any other known race or science. Whether the effects of these devices on human tissue is deliberate or not is unclear; if they were deliberate, it would indicate a callous genius as well as a farsighted malignancy. If the effects of the devices are accidental, it speaks of a terrifying power that could cause such a by-product unrelated to their true purpose. Usually found buried in the decayed basalt biers and shattered cyclopean ruins of their maker’s civilization---long rendered into anonymity by the erosion of ages---the Halo Devices themselves are always inexplicably untouched by the effects of time. Halo Devices come in many forms, from smooth carbuncular talismans to strange miniature trilobite-like fossil curios and sinister orbs with fluid and glossy surfaces. Some are irregular spheres, some segmented ovoids a handbreadth wide, still others small scarab-like objects. All are clearly xenos in origin and their texture and surface patterning calls to mind the shells of insects or skins of lizards. All share a strange metallic feel, defy analysis by auspexs or scanners, and are nearly imperious to harm. Indeed any force sufficient to breach one will also destroy it, making any such act worthless. All that is known of their effects are half-truths and stories passed down across the millennia. In fact, there are as many strange and unreliable fragments of lore surrounding them as there are different forms to the devices themselves. Given the proscribed nature of Halo Devices, it is unsurprising that rumor and supposition persist as to their powers and use. The truth, however, is that the devices will indeed grant their possessor what he seeks---youth, vigor, and undying power, but in such a manner only the most deranged would choose. Over time, the devices become part of their possessor’s body and mind, changing him according to alien inclinations and subjugating him to strange thirsts. The life of a possessor of a Halo Device becomes less his own and more that of the device itself. 'Within Calixis' As far as can be ascertained, the first discovery of a Halo Device on the edges of what would one day be called the Calixis Sector was made by the Explorator Archmagos Khronus in the late years of the 36th Millennium, although apocryphal tales of dangerous and accursed xenos artefacts of a similar vein originated in the area millennia before. Despite analysis, the terrible properties of the seemingly mundane relics discovered by Khronus remained undiscovered. For these horrors to emerge, a Halo Device would have to fall into less scrupulous hands. It is believed that one did after Khronus’s fleet returned many decades later to its base on the Forge World of Stragos where an incident occurred whose details have been long suppressed by the Mechanicus. Whatever events transpired on Stragos resulted in the devices being identified and condemned by both the Ordo Xenos and the Machine Cult, and the lives off all those involved with Halo Devices remain forfeit within the Imperium. The threat posed by Halo Devices was known when Angevin began his crusade and members and servants of the Ordo Xenos travelled in his wake seeking signs of their corrupting presence. It is even thought that some amongst the crusade’s greatest enemies used Halo Devices. That some of these enemies may yet live in secret, preserved by this blasphemous technology, is a terrible prospect that troubles the Holy Ordos to this day. The Inquisition, for its part, has watched the sectors around the Halo Stars for signs of this trade and the artefacts’ malign influence for centuries, hunting for those who traffic in the Halo Devices and mercilessly destroying those who have come into contact with them. Dedicated cells of Acolytes have spent their entire careers researching and hunting out Halo Devices. Congregations of Inquisitors have been created and have died in the war against these malign gifts from the Halo Stars’ past. 'The Sinophian Prosecution' Concrete evidence of the effects of the Halo Devices is frustratingly rare, but the earliest confirmed instance of conflict with the artefacts came on what was then the frontier world of Sinophia, some hundred years before Angevin’s crusade. During what is named in official Ordos sources as the Sinophian Prosecution, Lord Inquisitor Ozymandias Ruthven destroyed the heretic scion of a great and wealthy mercantile house of Sinophia. The heretic’s name was judged to be so reviled that it has been expunged from all records. The arch-heretic, whose influence ran through the Segmentum Obscurus even to the borders of Segmentum Solar itself, was said to be possessed of unnatural powers and could not die. The Inquisition, of course, begged to differ... The crimes and secret atrocities committed by this foe of mankind and his kin were so grievous as to merit execution not only for himself and his close associates but also for all of his house and its vassals. It became clear during this prosecution that the heretic was not, as first suspected, a daemon-worshiper, warped mutant, or witch. Rather, the heretic’s body was a hideous fusion of polluted human flesh and a xenological artefact that had become so much a part of him that the heretic and artefact were indivisible. It is recorded in one apocryphal source that Ozymandias hurled his bound enemy into the heart of Sinophia’s sun, destroying him utterly. 'Illicit Trade' Since the sector’s founding, no more than a few score Halo Devices are believed to have been clandestinely traded within its bounds, each changing hands for an exorbitant price. This trade is not only utterly illegal, but a heresy and crime so severe that any involvement with it will draw the harshest retribution under Imperial law. Accordingly, the illegal xenoexcavators who obtain Halo Devices, the smugglers who transport them, and the black market merchants who trade in them are amongst the most secretive and dangerous of recidivists. Such is the vast price for immortality peddled by these scum that those who are willing and able to pay it are among the most wealthy, powerful, and well connected individuals. This alone keeps the Halo Device’s legend alive in circles criminal, merchant, and noble alike. 'The Temptation of Immortality' Those few who covet Halo Devices have a simple but terrible motivation for their desire---the youth and eternal vigor bestowed by them. Rejuvenat treatments, sanguinary cleansing, and other techno-biological rituals can only preserve life so far. Even extreme solutions to extreme age such as full augmetic conversion and life support offer at best a poisoned chalice for those that take them up. Rather than undergo the indignities of infirmity and the ultimate truth of their own demise, some who desire freedom from the cruel touch of time seek other, more desperate measures. For some, the Ruinous Powers await with their own lies and empty promises. However, this path is as uncertain as it is filled with caprice and danger to body and soul. Others, rich, ruthless, and sufficiently well connected, may seek other means, turning to the half-rumored mysteries of ancient human science and the works of the alien for salvation. Fortunately, concrete knowledge of the existence of Halo Devices is rare and the means to obtain one even rarer yet. Only the wealthiest and most powerful seekers of eternal life in the sectors that border the Halo Stars are able to pursue these forbidden devices. Once they have obtained such a thing, they soon find that they have a new purposes to occupy them---first, concealing the crime that they have committed simply by possessing one, and, over time, concealing the side effects of the device’s gifts. The price they pay for their immortality is ultimately everything they have and everything they are as they spiral slowly down a path of contamination, corruption, and madness. Over time, most will be forced into the life of the recluse in order to survive, attended by a few loyal or terrified servants, and ultimately must pass the millennia hunted and shunned by their fellow man and at the mercy of alien thirsts and ancient nightmares. 'The Stuff that the Darkest Dreams are Made Of' Halo Devices come in many forms, but most are small and easily confused with odd jeweler, small pieces of armor, and curious miniature statuary. The form a Halo Device takes has no influence over its powers. Some commonly encountered forms are spheres (also called “halo oculus” for their resemblance to eyes), flat ovoids the width of a human palm, broad hoops varying in size, or small scarab or fossil-like objects. Once one begins to bond with a person, the form of the devices often changes as it melds with the user’s flesh. A true Halo Device might change hands in trade once in a hundred years and command prices of tens of millions of Thrones, or things of equal or more specific value such as trade route maps, noble titles, certain dark secrets, and other hugely valuable assets. Halo Devices can only be obtained through the most unscrupulous and well connected traders who peddle in the heretical and profane. They therefore have no Availability value, as obtaining them should never be a matter of simply rolling dice. A character with a Dark Pact, who is possessed, or who is a psyker (or the like) cannot bond with a Halo Device---the device will accept no master or influence but itself. Though it is only necessary that someone have close contact with a Halo Device for it to cause its effect, there are numerous stories and superstitions that accompany the use of Halo Devices. Such practices include surgical implantation of the device beneath the skin, replacing an eye with the device (called a “halo oculi” in this case), swallowing the device, or even bathing in alchemical preparations of blood during the bonding. 'Transfiguration' Halo Devices will begin to bond with and change any person who has prolonged contact (over several days or weeks) with them; this contact may be as simple as wearing the device as a piece of jeweler or keeping it in a pocket. However, embedding the device in an open wound may well speed up this process dramatically. Once the device bonds with the user, it begins to alter them. This process of change moves through three phases: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Once a person is into the primary phase there is no turning back, and they will eventually pass to the secondary and tertiary phases unless they are destroyed. Halo Devices require the flesh of a host, and if kept in contact with flesh, they will bond with it and, over time, change that flesh to suit their purposes. Halo Devices do have a purpose, corrupted by eons as it might be, and it is to transform the mind and body of those they bond with towards some dark and terrible configuration. As a person bonded to a Halo Device moves through each phase, various Traits and other effects are applied to him as detailed below. Primary Phase (Once Bonded to the device) Within a short span of time, ranging from a few weeks to a matter of hours in rare instances, the device becomes fully physically bonded with the user’s flesh. The user rejuvenates so that he is in the peak of youth and health. Any physical diseases, deformities, minor mutations, or other long-term medical conditions that he was suffering from are negated. Any part of the user’s body that has been lost re-grows during this phase (albeit slowly and painfully), his senses become superbly attuned, he moves with an unnatural grace, and he shrugs off all but the most grievous wounds. Even as his body changes, the user’s mind begins to break; he increasingly discovers that he finds no pleasure in normal sensory stimuli (food will taste ashen, etc.) and he suffers from violent mood swings. As time progresses, he learns that he no longer requires sleep—except for a few comatose hours every few days during which he suffers fierce phantasmagorical dreams of alien vistas and strange cities beneath mysterious stars. The following modifications apply at this stage. *Gain +10 Wounds. *The user no longer suffers the effects of Fatigue. *The user regains the peak of his physical prime and ceases to age. *Gain 2d10 Insanity Points. *Gain Heightened Senses (Sight, Sound, Smell, Taste, Touch), Unnatural Agility (×2) and Unnatural Toughness (×2). Secondary Phase (After several Years of contact) Over time, the device insinuates itself completely in the user’s body and becomes partially absorbed in the cellular makeup of the body itself, with the initial contact covered over by skin and scar tissue. The area where the device bonded to the flesh begins to change, becoming mottled and tough like the exoskeleton of an insect or becoming desiccated and cold like that of an embalmed corpse. The body of the user heals almost any Damage (given time) and is inhumanly fast, strong, and resilient. He no longer sleeps, eats, or drinks normal food, but as he slips further into madness, he develops strange addictions and insatiable hungers that he must regularly indulge or grow increasingly unstable and sickly. These addictions often include spending long periods in total darkness or immersion in solar radiation, and the hungers are often for substances like human tissue---such as blood, flesh, and cranial fluid. The user also finds that he has memories of strange alien civilizations, languages, and scripts meshing with his own and may lose large chunks of his own memories. The following modifications apply at this stage in addition to those from the primary stage. *Gain +10 Wounds. *Gain 3d10 Insanity Points. *Gain Dark Sight, Regeneration, Unnatural Agility (×3), Unnatural Strength (×2), and Unnatural Toughness (×2). *Gain Forbidden Lore (Xenos) or add +10 to the existing Skill. Tertiary Phase (After decades of contact or resurrection) There is no longer any separation between the user and the Halo Device whatsoever; his body becomes perceptibly altered, remaining humanoid but no longer human. Instances of burning, radiant eyes, corpse-like flesh, distorted gaunt features, mottled or armored hide-like skin, and even a fine beetle-like carapace are all recorded, and almost invariably the fingers of the hands transform into long talons of exposed bone. The thing that was once human is now so strong it can rip a man’s head from his shoulders with casual ease, survive the touch of the void, and, it is said, may even return from death. The mind that once spiraled towards madness is gone and in its place is something else. It is something formed from an unholy union of intellects, something that can speak in long dead tongues and brood on all too human desires with inhuman patience. The following special rules apply at this stage in addition to those from the primary and secondary stages. *Gain +10 Wounds. *Reduce Fellowship by –15 (05 minimum), increase Willpower by +10. *The user is now driven irrevocably insane and is removed from play if a Player Character. *Gain Fear 2 (Frightening), From Beyond, Natural Weapons (Claws;1d10 + SB I or R), Natural Armor (All 2d5), Strange Physiology, Stuff of Nightmares, Sonar Sense, and Unnatural Strength (×3) traits. *Gain Forbidden Lore (Xenos) +20. *Resurrection (Trait): A human in the tertiary phase of bonding to a Halo Device can return from death. If the user is killed but his body is not destroyed, he reanimates in a matter of days and is very, very hungry. Even if he is rendered down to mangled bones or burned to ash, should the remains be immersed in human blood and flesh and exposed to high electrical current or radiation, there is a chance he will be resurrected, his body reforming in minutes from a maelstrom of blood and unnatural energies. Note: the Inquisition has no concrete knowledge of this capability at present. Its only knowledge of this ability is from ancient tales, and many within the Ordo Xenos dismiss it as fanciful invention. 'The Risk and the Reward' A Rogue Trader might win a fortune to dwarf his noble inheritance in the trade of a single Halo Device won from a dead world of the Koronus Expanse, but he risks both life and legacy to be burned alive, for that is the fate of all who are discovered by the Ordo Xenos to have touched such vile corruption. Or worse, the Device might call to him, merge with him, and drag him down into an eternity of corruption, the nightmare legacy of xenos creators long vanished to dark aeons. Every Rogue Trader of note knows the bloody consequences that fell upon the Lord-Captains Balastus Irem, Rafe Longinus, and Eduard Majessus in the fifth century of the 41st millennium as a result of their suspected dealings in Halo Devices. Wealth beyond measure exists in a hundred other forms in the Koronus Expanse: crux-gems, precious ores, xenos beasts for the circuses, and worlds brimming with heathen riches. Yet dead stars and eldritch biers upon lifeless xenos worlds sing their siren song, and there are always some who will listen.